On Sun, May 18, 2014 at 8:49 AM, Joe Bogner <[email protected]> wrote:
> I thought of a weak analogy that helps describe my experience with J so > far. Writing J is like writing a Haiku. J provides the structure to make > the poem simple and powerful. I could sit down and write a poem in > another language (say javascript). Without the structure (forks, trains of > evaluation) and vocabulary, it wouldn't have the same "quality"... I can't > describe "quality" easily, but I do remember a view of it that made sense > to me in the Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance[3] which I've only > read about 3/4 of about 5 years ago... > I agree. J has its roots in cleanly documenting computer architectures, and perhaps that is significant here. It's certainly had a huge impact on both the structure and success of IBM, of Wall Street and of other things (spread sheets and sql both seem to have Iverson's influence on them, and many of the really productive programmers I've known have had some APL background). >From my point of view, it offers considerable structure which isn't available in other languages. Of course this generic description is not unique to J, and there are many other languages out there that offer structure not present in other languages. (I went on for paragraphs after this, but I'll cut it back to here.) Thanks, -- Raul ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
